Tag: IMSA Weather Tech Championship

Sebring Weekend Thoughts

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Life got in the way last week as I sent my 19 year old cat Gracie to the Rainbow Bridge. Two days later I left for Sebring and the 72nd running of the12 hour race. I needed this weekend badly.

Sebring was my first sports car endurance race, and it is my favorite. This feeling may be subject to change after Jaune.

I camped again with my friend George Butz and his crew. We had a great time. Thanks again, George.

Some random thoughts on the weekend:

My first impression upon arrival was that the place seemed rather crowded for Thursday. I had the same thought Friday and Saturday. I have never seen Sebring so packed. Theer was not room for another vehicle inside the track.

The track could use a couple of more video boards on the back side of the track.

9:40 am is awfully early to start a race. Not only does it make the morning rushed, it also deprives the fans of an hour of night racing. The early part of the race is fun, but when the sun goes down things get interesting.

It doesn’t seem to matter if someone is running away from the field, Sebring always seems to come through with a dramatic ending.

Derani Crash

The Pipo Derani crash was frightening. I was not in turn 9 at the time, but I went there later and talked to a couple of my friends who witnessed the accident. Tires were bouncing everywhere. Fortunately no spectators were injured. There is a walking path next to the track which fortunately was not busy at the time.

My friends said that track and IMSA officials appeared quickly and interviewed many fans about what they saw.

My friends are concerned that a catch fence may be erected at this spot, which would spoil a great view of one of the highest speed portions of the track.

My friend Shannon Roe took these photos of some the debris field left by the Cadillac. Thanks, Shannon.

The fan walking path is to the left of the fence on the bottom left.

The rest of the field did not seem to have anything for the 31 Cadillac. The Ganassi Cadillac was the only that could keep pace, and they ended up finishing second.

Another Great Day for Indycar Drivers

Colton Herta was a driver on the winning team from Wayne Taylor/Andretti Racing. Herta drove the penultimate shift, and put the car in position to win. Louis Delatraz finished the race with a brilliant drive.

Scott Dixon drove for the second place Cadillac team with teammate Sebastien Bourdais.

Kyle Kirkwood drove for the GTD Pro winning Vasser/Sullivan Lexus entry,

Romain Grosjean’s Lamborghini finished seventh overall in the team;s first IMSA race. Grosjean had a couple of nice stints for the team, who’s goal to just finish the race.

Romain Grosjean in the Lamborghini GTP.

Tomorrow begins coverage of the Thermal Indycar event. I have a lot of mixed feelings about this, which I will talk about as the week goes on,.

Busy Week for Indycar Drivers- Testing, Rolex24

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More than half of the full time Indycar will complete a busy week Sunday aer the Rolex 24 at Daytona. The drivers began the week in Homestead testing a team car in the spec for the first part of the Indycar Series season without the hybrid component. The car is lighter and should produce quicker times. +

Andretti Global was the quickest at the 10-car test with Colton Herta and Kyle Kirkwood leading sessions. Felix Rosenquist of MSR, a team allied with AG, also lead a half day round.

Jack Harvey returned to the series, driving for Dale Coyne Racing for two of the three days. Indy NXT Rookie of the Year Nan Seigel also got some time in a Coyne car.

Rolex 24 Features Indycar Drivers Throughout the Field

Fourteen drivers from the Indycar Series will participate in tomorrow’s Rolex 24 at Daytona. James Hinchcliffe will also drive in the GTD Pro class.

The GTP Cadillacs have been strong in practice. Can they put it together for 24 hours?

Full Race on Peacock; Start/Finish on NBC; USA Segments

The Pit Window News

The Pit Window will begin the move to Winter Headquarters on Monday. I hate not being at Daytona this weekend, but I will be on site for St. Pete and Sebring. The good news, I will be attending a 24 hour race this summer.

December and the first part of January has been brutal health wise for us, but we will finally get to Florida by mid week.

Here’s hoping for a safe, fun Rolex 24, and at least one Indycar driver in Victory Lane.

Penske Porsches Finish Where They Started

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The team started on the front row, and while the finishing order flipped from qualifying, the Penske Porsches finished first and second un the inaugural TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks. Nick Tandy and Mathieu Jaminet were the winning drivers in the number 6. The pole car took the lead on the wild start, and the team cars stayed together virtually the entire race.

Pipo Derani took the lead during a caution when he was the only car to follow IMSA’s direction to pass the GTD cars. With the Porsches closing in, Derani locked the wheels entering turn 1 and the 31 battled for a while before fading to fourth at the end.

The race had just 13 laps of the 113 circuits run, all in the first hour. Sebastien Bourdais spun between turns 1 and 2, causing front end damage and leaving a large piece of debris on the track.

After the first 75 minutes the race settled down. The track was very busy with 48 cars on a track less than three miles long.. Leaders continually fought through traffic.

The Winners

Class winners:

GTP

Nick Tandy/Mathieu Jaminet Penske Porsche

LMP2

Steven Thomas/ Mikkel Jensen Oreca

LMP3

Anthony Mantella/Wayne Boyd Duqueine

GTD Pro

Daniel Juncadella/Jules Gounon Mercedes AMG

GTD

Russell Ward/Phillip Ellis Mercedes AMG

Thoughts

The race was fun to watch. Traffic was continuous. Drivers have to be very precise to deal with slower cars.

This was my first IMSA sprint race. It had a lot more energy and sense of urgency than an endurance race. The tension was palpable.

I liked that the scoring pylon had the class color underneath the number. It made it easy to find a particular car’s overall standing and its class position.

This morning’s autograph session had drivers signing outside their individual garages. It made for shorter lines and fans could get the drivers they wanted. Indycar used to do this. I wish they would go back to this system.

One thing I noticed was a lack of local television stations at the track this weekend. I looked on a couple of station’s websites and found just one story on each site. I guess it’s more important to cover Indianapolis’ mediocre football team than an historic race at IMS.

Attendance was decent. I’m guessing it was around 30,000, which is good for an IMSA stand alone event.

Thanks for following along this weekend. This was my first time covering an IMSA event. It is quite different from an Indy race weekend.

I will have some more photos up this week.

IMSA Race Day

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Today’s Schedule:

7:30 a.m.-4 p.m.: Public gates open

8-8:20 a.m.: IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Warm-up

9:40-10:20 a.m.: Porsche Carrera Cup Race 2 (40 minutes)

10:40-11:30 a.m.: Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America Race 2 (50 minutes)

Noon-12:50 p.m.: IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Pre-Race, Open Grid, Fan Walk

1:10-3:50 p.m.: IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks Race (2 hours, 40 minutes) NBC, Peacock

Toay begins a new era for IMS as sports cars begin what should be a longer run than the three years of Grand AM had in the early 2010s. The series has been fun to watch on track the last two days.

As I watched practice yesterday morning, I thought how proper it looked to have sports on the road course. These machines just looked like they belonged here.

Last night’s Michelin Pilot Challenge turned out to be a heck of a race. The last hour featured fierce battles for the lead in both classes. There was a lot of contact between the leaders, but it was mostly hard racing. Daniel Morad won the GS class. Mikey Taylor won the TCR trophy. Robert Wickens lost the lead with just three laps to go, and finished second, less than a second behind Taylor. It was great to see Wickens racing at IMS again.

The track looks great at night. like that the entire track isn’t lit. I felt there was the correct mix of lighted and dark areas.

Notes

Following the warmup, there will be a special demonstration run with the last Ferrari to win Le Mans prior to this year, and a 1966 Ford GT.

I thought the grid walk before the race yesterday afternoon seemed less crowded than usual. I discovered the reason. Virtually everyone had crowded around the car of Robert Wickens. Several Indycar drivers were there, including Alexander Rossi, Marus Ericsson, Felix Rosenqvist, Jack Harvey, and Conor Daly.

I will try to have a quick pre race post and then a post after the race. Enjoy the race.

Front Row Sweep for Porsche

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Matt Campbell was fast yesterday and even faster today. He led a Penske Porsche sweep of the front row for tomorrow’s TireRack,com Battle on the Bricks. (The event name needs some work, by the way)

Campbell was the first car to turn a lap in the 1:13s and he had a best lap of 1:13.672. Teammate Mathieu Jaminet, Acura driver Tom Blomqvist, and Cadillac driver Sebastien Bourdais also ran laps in the 1:13 bracket.

The 10 GTP cars were separated by 0.96 seconds.

Ben Keating won the pole in LMP2. The LMP 2 /LMP3 session was interrupted with seven minutes left when Bijo Garg ran head on into the tire barrier in turn six. Tine ran out on the session, but race officials allowed one more timed lap. Keating improved his time to seal the pole. Garg was leading LMP3 at the time of his crash. His time stood up.

Ben Keating on his way to the LMP2 pole.

Madison Snow won the pole in GTD and led the combined GTD and GTD Pro session in a Paul Miller owned BMW.

Klaus Bachler put the Pfaff motorsports Porsche on the GTD Pro pole.

Next uo today is the four hour Michelin Pilot Challenge which begins in an hour. Robert Wickens will start second. The race will be shown live on Peacock.

Robert Wickens will start on the front row.

Saturday at IMS: IMSA Qualifies; Michelin Pilot Races into the Night

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Today’s Schedule All times Eastern

7:30 a.m.-8:30 p.m.: Public gates open

8-8:15 a.m.: Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America Qualifying 1

8:20-8:35 a.m.: Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America Qualifying 2

8:55-10:25 a.m.: IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship Practice 2 (GTD/LMP3/LMP2)

9:10-10:40 a.m.: IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship Practice 2 (GTD PRO/GTP)

11-11:15 a.m.: Michelin Pilot Challenge Qualifying (TCR)

11:20-11:35 a.m.: Michelin Pilot Challenge Qualifying (GS)

11:50 a.m.-12:40 p.m.: Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America Race 1 (50 minutes)

1-1:15 p.m.: IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship Qualifying (GTD/GTD PRO)

1:25-1:40 p.m.: IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship Qualifying (LMP2/LMP3)

1:50-2:10 p.m.: IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship Qualifying (GTP)

2:30-3:10 p.m.: Porsche Carrera Cup Race 1 (40 minutes)

3:30-4:10 p.m.: Michelin Pilot Challenge Pre-Race (Open Grid/Fan Walk)

4:30-8:30 p.m.: Indianapolis Motor Speedway 240 for the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge (Four hours)

Fans at IMS get their first look at IMSA qualifying today. The five classes split into three groups-the two GTD classes, LMP2 and LMP 3, and GTP. The first two groups have 15 minutes each, and the GTP has 20 minutes. That is it. No knockout qualifying, just the fastest time .

I plan to explore the IMS merchandise shop today. I had just a brief look yesterday. IMSA also has a merchandise tent in the infield. I am having technical difficulties posting photos to my blog. I may just have to a separate post with just photos.

The day ends with a four hour Michelin Pilot Challenge race. The series qualifies this morning, each class getting 15 minutes on track. The Michelin Pilot Challenge also runs a four hour race at Daytona the day before the Rolex 24 hours.

I’ll be back after qualifying.

Here are a couple photos from yesterday.

Porsche Leads Practice 1

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Matt Campbell and Porsche picked up where he left off in summer testing at IMS, driving the number 7 Team Penske Porsche to the top speed in in IMSA Weather Tech’s first practice session. His fast lap was 1:14.184. Porsche was very strong in the test at IMS.

Felipe Nasr, co driver of Porsche numberb7

Jack Hawksworth led the GTD Pro class in a Vasser Sullivan Lexus with a lap of 1:23.636. Hawksworth has driven this course when he competed in the Indycar series.

Jack Hawksworth

The other class leaders:

LMP2-Mikkel Jensen TDS Racing Oreca 1:17.231

LMP3-Garrett Grist JrIII Racing Ligier 1:20.737

GTD Patrick Gallagher Turner Motorsport BMW 1:24.019

The serioes has one more practice beginning at 8:55 tomorrow morning before qualifying starts at 1 pm.

Notes

Attendance was decent for a Friday in September. I have not heard any word on ticket sales, but I think the weekend will see a good crowd. The weather was just perfect for racing today and it is expected to continue the rest of the weekend.

The pit configuration is similar to Formula 1. The temporary grandstands behind the pits are not in place. IMSA teams have a lot of equipment. The walkway behind the pits is very tight.

Shortly after my last post in which I said I did not see anyone I knew, I did something about it. I went back to Pagoda Plaza and found two people I recognized from Twitter, @Indynathan and @GasolineAly. We talked for awhile and visited the Toronto Motorsports trailer. problem solved.

By the way Toronto Motorsports has an amazing diecast inventory of classic sports cars. If you come to IMS this weekend, check them out.

This will do it for me for today. Michelin Pilot Challenge has a practice at 7:15 this evening. I’m excited to see how this track performs at night. No lights have been added to the track.

Stranger in a Familiar Land

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WE are about two hours from the first IMSA Weather Tech practice. Michelin Pilot Challenge just concluded their first practice session. Porsche Carrera Cup is getting set for their second round on track.

As I walked through the plaza and through the garage area, something felt odd. I realized I had not seen anyone that I knew. So far it is a new group of fans here. I’m sure Indycar fans will be here the rest of the weekend, but what a strange feeling to walk around the place I’ve been coming to multiple times for more than 50 years and not see one person that I recognized.

From earlier:

IMSA-Sports Cars Return to IMS

IMSA- Sports Cars Return to IMS

In the just completed Michelin Pilot Challenge practice round, Robert Wickens finished third in class, 0.14 seconds off the leader.

Robert Wickens spoke to fans this morning before practice

Here is a photo of the coolest looking car in the field.

I will be back after IMSA Weather Tech Practice.